Saturday, April 30, 2016

ANCIENT MAP PRESERVED IN A MURAL OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS AT CATALHOYUK:

Catalhoyuk map and volcano wall

mural, from the Internet.

As readers of RockArtBlog know, I sometimes
expand the subject of my writings to ancient wall murals and/or carvings. While
perhaps not strictly rock art per se, as an art historian these subjects are so
closely related to the field as to render them eligible of inclusion. I
cannot see enough difference between a painting on a natural rock wall (a
cliff) and a painting on a constructed rock wall to not include them all. Having
written recently about a possible record of a volcanic eruption in Chauvet/Pont
d'Ard cave in France (Feb. 27, 2016), and also about the question of possible maps found in
rock art (March 12, 2016), I now have the great pleasure of writing about a map that apparently
records a volcanic eruption preserved in a wall mural at Çatalhöyük,
in western Anatolia, Turkey.

An artist's rendering of

Catalhoyuk, Wikipedia.

"Çatalhöyük(Turkish
pronunciation: [tʃaˈtaɫhøjyc]; alsoÇatal HöyükandÇatal Hüyük; fromTurkishçatal"fork" +höyük"mound") was a very largeNeolithicandChalcolithicproto-citysettlement
in southernAnatolia, which existed
from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC, and flourished around 7000 BC.It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date. In
July 2012, it was inscribed as aUNESCOWorld Heritage
Site." (Wikipedia)

"Çatalhöyük
is located overlooking the Konya Plain, southeast of the present-day city ofKonya(ancient Iconium) inTurkey, approximately 140 km (87 mi) from the twin-coned volcano ofMount Hasan. The eastern
settlement forms a mound which would have risen about 20 m (66 ft)
above the plain at the time of the latest Neolithic occupation. There is also a
smaller settlement mound to the west and aByzantinesettlement
a few hundred meters to the east. The prehistoric mound settlements were
abandoned before theBronze Age. A channel of theÇarşambariver
once flowed between the two mounds, and the settlement was built on alluvial
clay which may have been favorable for earlyagriculture." (Wikipedia)

Mount Hasan, Anatolia,

Turkey. Wikipedia.

So 9,500 years ago this agricultural settlement was situated on a plain
with the two cones of the volcano visible on the horizon.

"Mount Hasan(Turkish:Hasan Dağı)
is an inactivestratovolcanoinAksarayprovince,Turkey.
With an elevation of 3,268 m (10,722 ft),it ranks as the second highest mountain of centralAnatolia. Acaldera4-5 kilometres wide formed near the current summit
around 7500 BC, in an eruption recorded inNeolithicpaintings." (Wikipedia)

Catalhoyuk wall mural as discovered.

From Sci-News.com.

The Çatalhöyük Mural as preserved

in the Museum of Anatolian

Civilizations. From the Internet.

"The
eruption is portrayed in a mural painted on the wall of one of the rooms
excavated at Catalhoyuk. “The
lower register of the mural contains about 80 square-shaped patterns tightly
arranged like cells in a honeycomb, and its upper register depicts an object
that its discoverers initially identified either as a rendering of a mountain
with two peaks with the cell-like patterns representing a plan view of a
village with a general layout of the houses similar to that of Çatalhöyük and
other nearby Neolithic settlements, or a leopard skin with its extremities cut
off,” a team of scientists led by Dr Axel Schmitt from the University of
California Los Angeles wrote in the PLoS
ONE paper."

(Sci-News.com 2014)

An artist's rendering of the

Catalhoyuk mural, Wikipedia.

“In the ‘map’ interpretation, the
volcano and its violent eruption are posited to have been significant for the
inhabitants of Çatalhöyük because they procured obsidian in the vicinity of
Mount Hasan.”" (Sci-News.com 2014) As far as I am concerned they did
not even need the obsidian to be concerned. Having a major volcanic eruption
within view of your village would be a hugely impressive event that might be
subject to recording pictorially on a wall. Proponents of the leopard skin interpretation
need to explain the apparent spray coming from the top peak, as well as what
the leopard skin is lying on. What is that surface made up of black squares?
While this is another one that will never be known for sure, it is certainly
fascinating, and I am going with the volcano interpretation for now.

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"We can be nearly certain that we who look upon the rock art today were not the intended audience. But they have meanings for us non-the-less. Whether that meaning is part of our archaeological studies, a part of national or regional heritage or simply an appreciation of their aesthetic beauty, we are their inheritors and it is up to us to preserve them with care and dignity." D. Russel Micnhimer, 2012.

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About Me

30+ year member of the Colorado Archaeological Society,
Founder and former President of the Colorado Rock Art Association,
Member of the Arapahoe County Cultural Commission, President of Institute for Archeoesthetics.
2013 recipient of the Ivol Hagar Award for outstanding service to the Colorado Archaeological Society, and a 2013 Colorado Rock Art Association Chapter Achievement Award. Member of Archaeology and Historic Preservation Committee and also Programs Committee of History Colorado.
Arapahoe County Cultural Council.